Nathan and I are ready to put our old Compaq Presario out to pasture. We cannot even get the CD ROM Drive to work anymore. :rolleyes:

We were going to keep it for the kids so they could play computer games on it, but it won'r even do a simple install, so out to pasture it goes.

What type of software is best for wiping a hard drive completely clean? I do not want any Turbo Tax data, old excel files, any possible cookies dealing with credit card purchases, etc. to be readable on the hard drive.

Any help would be appreciated. :D

Try Erasure (http://download.com.com/3000-2092-10231813.html). It's free and seems to get pretty favorable reviews.

Here's more info (http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/default.php) on Erasure that you might find helpful.

Doesn't Norton also have a WipeDisk proggy that's good for that?

I think it's also gov't certified (subject to interpretation, of course!) as far as destroying any info and making it unrecoverable.

-Demigod

This is very helpful. We still have to archive a bunch of stuff, but it should be easy enough to do.

Thanks! :D

I would suggest using BCWIPE (http://www.jetico.com/bcwipe3.htm)

It's what I used at work to erase our drives before we donated them to schools for their use.

Wouldn't just reformatting the hard drive do the trick? Or can data be recovered after reformatting?

Sheila

Believe it or not, formatting a hard drive does NOT replace the data already written to the hard drive. It just puts markers on the hard drive that indicate to the PC what areas it can write to.

Think of the hard drive kind of like a CD. There are 'tracks' on a HD. Formatting an HD just tells the HD to put an indicator on each track that says 'ok - i'm ready to be written to'. It doesn't overwrite any info unless a file is saved in the same spot that another was deleted from.

These 'wiping' programs are effective in 'erasing' data on HDs simply because these programs write zeroes all over the HD - overwriting ALL information possibly contained on the HD.

-Demigod
(Hope I didnt confuse anyone! :D )

And believe it or not the CIA/FBI/ supposedly has the capability to read back 6 generations of overwrites on a hard drive, that's why DoD certified wiping software will overwrite the hard drive several times with alternating 1's and 0's.

Still many recommend that the best thing to do is just to take a hammer to the hard drive, since it's probably of too little capacity and/or speed to be of any real benefit to anyone.

Hammering it is probably cheaper and faster too. ;)

What about f-disking it?

Originally posted by justagrrl
What about f-disking it?

FDisk is only a partitioning program it doesn't wipe nor format the information on the disk. It only lets you set up or delete partitions. The data would still be on the drive and very recoverable to a computer savvy person.

You have to decide how much effort a snoop is willing to go through to recover information on you. Unless you are a Fortune 500 CEO, they're not going to expend a whole lot of work. Exception: If the person is divorced from you or otherwise has a deep grudge. Or a cop if you've been doing naughty things.

A simple reformat or file erasure will stop the casual person, they aren't going to bother with recovering the data. It's still there - to use a library analogy, all the books are still on the shelves in the order they were last put there, but you have erased the card catalog - your computer has no idea where to look for the various parts of the files. All it did was say "this area is vacant and OK to write over with new data and files"

Though they can still be recovered, and very easily if the drive was defragmented recently, all the files are in complete continuous blocks and not scattered all over. All they have to do is figure out the start and end points.

To be sure the data is not recoverable, you need to use a multiple-overwrite DOD Approved wipe program, then reload the OS so the machine will run. (And your anti-virus programs.) Then you can let your kids play with it.

If the machine is leaving your immediate family and it had sensitive data on it, first you wipe the drive, then you physically smash the hard drive to bits. Including the platters inside. If it's over 5 years old, it's probably too small to bother with - and the computer is probably a 486 or first-generation Pentium. (Or a Mac Plus for the applecentric.)

:fez: --<< Bruce >>--

Go out an get a 40 GB drive for like 50 bucks, and smash the old one to kingdom come. :~D

I'm confused. I don't know much about PCs but aren't there programs out there that you can get for free that do the multiple over-writing thing? I know someone who's done this and I know he didn't spend any money to do it and that the program overwrote the hard drive so many times that the 6 generation thing was not an issue. (He wasn't hiding from the FBI, LOL, and all of his files were legal, just personal.)

Confession: I didn't follow Bill or Dexter's links, so they may be free for all I know. But I *know* this person didn't buy any software to do this.

Adrienne

Originally posted by adriennek
Confession: I didn't follow Bill or Dexter's links, so they may be free for all I know. Erasure (the link I provided) is free and fully functional. BCWIPE (Dexter's link) is free for a fully functional evaluation copy (usable for 30 days), but $40 to buy 1 license.

Ok, so if by "several" they mean more than six, you're totally set. Sounds easy enough to me. I remember it not taking that long to take care of and if it's not your primary computer, it seems to me you can just download it, run it, and walk away until it's finished? Sounds easy to me!

Adrienne

Being in the military I am extreamly familiar with BC Wipe. I used it to do several 7 pass wipes on various Hard Drives. It takes a Long Time. we are talking days for a 20 GB Disk. (Of course the version I'm using might not be the most recent one. I usually just leave set it up and leave it over the weekend.

Hmm. When I bought my two 486 notebooks (not both at the same time; I bought the second while I was waiting for the parts to fix the first, on which I'd blown the LCD trying to fix broken hinges!), at least one of them had WinDoze 95 installed on it. As I recall, I did a Norton "Government Wipe" on the hard drive before repartitioning it for a DOS scratch-install, just to get rid of all traces of Windoze!:p